Is Debt Limit The Next Republican Economic Sabotage?

Republicans voted for a budget that caved in to many of their economy-sabotaging, hostage-ransom austerity demands. Now the “debt ceiling” has to be raised in February so the government can pay for that budget that Republicans voted for. Republicans are saying no way without a new ransom. Or they’ll blow up the economy. Even hinting at this is economic sabotage.

Debt Ceiling Must Be Increased In February

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has announced that Congress must increase the debt ceiling by late February. Extreme measures that the Treasury takes to put off the need to sell some bonds to pay bills (authorized by Congress) will be used up and the country will no longer be able to honor its obligations.

Republicans, of course, immediately said they will hold the economy hostage, unless certain ransom demands are met. House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman said, “… a ‘clean’ debt limit increase simply won’t pass in the House.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed, saying “I doubt if the House or, for that matter, the Senate is willing to give the president a clean debt ceiling increase.”

Keep in mind that these are the leaders of the House and Senate Republicans yet again threatening to default on the country’s obligations. This is with the full knowledge that each time they have threatened this before now the threat itself has damaged the economy.

They didn’t actually go through with it, but the threat alone does damage. And they know that. And again they make the threat that does the damage.

At what point does it become clear that harming the economy is the idea?

The Republican Party is poised to demand the repeal of a law that cracks down on overseas tax dodging, according to Reuters.

Senate Republicans have filibustered over 440 times, obstructing things that a majority would pass.

In the House, Boehner has obstructed votes on so many things that would help the economy — because a majority would pass them. A simple example is the bill to crack down on Chinese currency manipulation that was passed by the Senate and has 60 Republican cosponsors in the House. Boehner will not let the House vote on it even though it would boost the economy and restore millions of jobs.

Our corporate-dominated news media refuses to use the word ‘sabotage.’ They refuse to use the word ‘obstruction.’ They even refuse to use the word ‘filibuster’ to describe what happens when Republicans block a bill or nominee using a “Senate procedure” that changes the threshold from a majority to 60 votes – commonly known as a filibuster. And then they report to the public that “Democrats failed” again to get something done and deliver for We the People. This is how the news media is obstructing democracy.

About Dave Johnson

Dave has more than 20 years of technology industry experience. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. He was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US.